1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic publishing systems and, more specifically, to automatically creating navigation links in a publication.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Content providers wish to frequently update the content within their titles. Traditionally, this requires hand-authoring display and navigation tools within the title, e.g., the Table of Contents, every time the content changes. This is a time-consuming and error-prone process, involving:
hand-authoring the items in the list PA1 hand-authoring links to the actual content PA1 formatting the items in the list to make them visually compelling
This is a serious impediment to quick release of time-sensitive content (e.g. stock trade reports, news reports, special discounts on merchandise).
Related systems such as file viewers, desktop publishing software and existing electronic publishing systems do not solve this important problem.
The display of hierarchical structures is commonly used in files systems. As examples, the File Manager in Microsoft Windows or the Explorer in Windows 95 provide such a capability. In such a system, when a user activates a file, by clicking on a mouse, the application program associated with the file is started by the operating system, or the application itself is started. This type of hierarchical display does not, however, allow for navigation of a single integrated hypermedia document, i.e., a single document containing links to multiple media.
Many different systems exist for publishing documents on a computer system. These systems are used to, for example, create newsletters or brochures to promote a particular company. In addition, publications can be used to disseminate information to a variety of customers. A number of programs exist for allowing a user to design complicated layouts for a particular application. Well-known programs such as Microsoft Publisher.RTM., Ventura Publisher.RTM., PageMaker.RTM., and PrintShop.RTM. help a user to produce attractive newsletters and brochures.
Another category of publication systems include software for electronically publishing stories across on-line networks such as CompuServe, America On-Line, or the Internet. Most of these systems create and display stories that are formatted in a Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Both the HTML and SGML are standards for tagging text in documents to be displayed in an on-line network. Documents that are formatted in HTML or SGML can be viewed by several widely distributed browsers such as Mosaic and NetScape for the Internet. These browser programs read SGML and HTML tagged documents and display them with proper formatting.
Several programs exist for producing documents that are tagged in either the SGML and HTML format. Programs such as Interleaf's WorldView 2 allow a user to create an SGML document with, for instance, bold-face text and hyperlinks to other documents. A hyperlink, also known as a navigation link, is a user selectable portion of a screen display which, when activated by a user event such as a mouse click, causes the viewing program to navigate to another portion of the displayed document.
Once a document has been saved in an SGML format, it can be read by either the Mosaic or NetScape browser. Unfortunately, all of the navigation links for text or graphics in an SGML or HTML document are embedded within the document. The Mosaic or NetScape browsers do not reformat these tagged documents, but rather only display the commands embedded in the SGML or HTML documents to a user. For this reason, the designers that produce the SGML and HTML documents must add navigation links to every new document. Therefore, the process of creating documents for display using SGML or HTML is very inefficient for the document designer.
Other commercially available software programs for producing on-line publications are available in the marketplace. One type of electronic publisher that generates its own specific format of text while retaining the specific layout of the document is the Adobe Acrobat.TM. software package. Acrobat.TM. reads and stores documents in a specialized format known as the Portable Document Format (PDF) for use on the Internet. Other electronic publishing programs are produced by Interleaf, Inc. (Waltham, Mass.), Farallon Computing (Alameda, Calif.) and Common Ground Software (Belmont, Calif.).
None of the known file viewers, desktop or on-line electronic publishing systems provide a way to automate the insertion of navigation links which is desired to overcome the shortcomings of known systems.